He died 25 years ago today on stage at a festival in Italy, aged 46. Morphine left behind five albums, one released posthumously after Sandman’s passing.
They are described as “alternative,” but Morphine were much closer to jazz and blues, and Sandman’s lyrics pulsed with the beating heart of a Beat poet, with added humor, surreal vibes and sex appeal.
I saw them three times in Pittsburgh. On one occasion, Sandman came out and addressed the audience, letting us know they’d be doing the show in reverse. They started with an encore, left the stage for a few minutes, and came back. During their last song he announced it was their first. Something that simple was incredibly disruptive.
On a second occasion, the show didn’t stick out so much as an encounter with a hipster dressed in an all-white suit and wearing dark sunglasses who kept walking around the floor, smoking in what he assumed was a cool accompaniment to his look, and posing for the audience to bask in his dipshit glory. In reality he looked like an upscale waiter wearing Ray Charles’ sunglasses. At one point, he tried to lean his arm on the stage, completely missed and went down like Woody Allen doing a bit. The entire audience laughed at him and he scurried away to the bar.
On the third and final time, I waited outside with my friend Mark after the show to get his autograph. He was slightly aloof, but signed my notebook and accepted my compliment that it was a great show. My friend Mark hadn’t brought anything so he had Sandman sign his ticket stub.
There wasn’t enough room on the ticket for his full name, so Sandman just signed it “Mark.” On the way home my friend Mark lamented that no one would believe Mark Sandman signed his ticket. It was hilarious.
And then just a few months later, he was dead.
I first became aware of Morphine in Montreal in 1995, seeing the video for “Thursday” on Music Plus (the Quebecois version of MTV) in a hotel during a family vacation. I remember the year and the time (summer) because the Quebec Referendum had just happened and the smallest of majorities kept Quebec part of Canada. I also remember having fantastic Indian at Le Taj, which is still there.
“Thursday” paints a noir story about a man who’s pool playing friend turns into a torrid love affair. When the neighbor’s see his car and let him know her husband is a violent and jealous man, he high tails it out of town.
The opening verse sets the scene “We used to meet every Thursday, Thursday Thursday in the afternoon. For a coupe of beers and a game of pool.”
By the end, the verse turns into a sardonic lament. “We should have kept it every Thursday, Thursday, Thursday in the afternoon. For a couple of beers and a game of pool. She was pretty good, too.”
The character is as much upset about his poor decision making as losing a pool playing buddy. The instrumentation is intense all the way to the saxophone freakout at the end.
Sandman was a multi-instrumentalist, probably best known for playing his slinky 2-string slide bass. The band evolved its sound slowly, one might even say deliberately. The last album recorded in his lifetime, The Night, held the promise of what could have been, adding a slew of additional musicians to the mix including John Medeski to expand upon the sound without ever totally departing from it.
While songs like “The Night,” and “I’m yours, you’re mine,” are playing in the late-night listening space Morphine was known for, tracks like “Rope on Fire,” added vague Middle Eastern elements and “Top Floor, Bottom Buzzer,” is pure sweaty groove, complete with female background vocals. But it was still unmistakably Morphine.
Who knows where Sandman would have gone next had he not left so soon.
For an amazing portrait of the man, check out the documentary Cure For Pain: The Mark Sandman Story. Don’t be surprised if you get emotional at the end. Even if you’ve never heard of the band or the man before it pulls on your heartstrings. Pun intended.